Going Home
by Erroneous
Summary: Martin, Louisa, and baby return home together to Portwenn
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:**

**Doc Martin is the property of Buffalo Pictures. This work of is for amusement only and no infringement of any legal rights is intended.**

**I am grateful for the most excellent sharp and fresh eyes of simplyred for reviewing this work and thereby helping to make it more simply-read (sorry) for your enjoyment.**

**- Erroneous**

**Going Home**

_**Initial Verse I**_

_Gather ye love and live carpe diem!_

_For toils of worms so quick are decay,_

_Entombed within a grim mausoleum._

_Lo! crawls not time with life lived delay._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

"Really Martin, I'm fine," Louisa responded while biting back the weariness in her voice for having been asked for the thousandth time already. Recollection of months past when she'd longed for Martin to voice such genuine concern had just washed over her an instant before.

"Actually, I'm better than fine. It feels like a great weight has been lifted. You know like- off my back, off my kidneys, off my bladder… It's so nice for a change to go for a pee and, well you know, actually go for a pee…" Louisa said beaming a smile to Martin as she shuffled back to the edge of her bed from visiting the loo and changing out of her hospital garb.

"So then, shall I get the car?" Martin asked in a low voice so as not to wake the baby who was slumbering deeply within his arms.

"Everything's nearly ready. Yes, we'd better take our chance before he's hungry again. The nurse is getting a wheelchair and some help sent over to load our things," Louisa said looking around the much adorned room.

"But you can't go quite yet…"

"Why's that?" Martin asked without taking his eyes off the sweet peaceful face of his newborn son. An instant later the flash of the camera for the umpteenth time answered the question for him.

"How many of you does it take to discharge a patient?" Martin remarked looking up to see a clutch of hospital personnel suddenly standing before them. Some of Martin's irritability, which had softened in the last couple of days, had begun to show itself again.

There had been a steady stream of medical staff stopping by during their stay that seemed unrelated to any medical necessity. Of course Martin had yet to realize that they had just invented reasons to look in on him, Louisa, and the baby. Word had spread that that Dr. Ellingham had actually managed to reproduce and those who were familiar with him or his reputation, even beyond Truro hospital, had come to see for themselves. Indeed the hospital cafeteria would be abuzz for weeks with the fact that not only was it true, but that a most beautiful baby with a most beautiful mum was involved.

"Right," Martin remarked satisfyingly to no one really, considering that it quickly brought about the desired effect of scattering all but those necessary to help.

The time had come again for surgeon and Dr. Martin Ellingham to make an appearance. He stood and extended his deft and steady hands of a surgeon. Cupped within those hands, held even more delicately than one of the vital organs that he customarily held together with the innate life that it sustained, was his days old son that he tenderly passed into the waiting arms of his mother.

"Then I'll see you downstairs in say, fifteen minutes then?"

…

Louisa said some last goodbyes and best wishes to the other new mothers on the ward whom she'd befriended. Beyond her warm and friendly personality, these friendships had been forged in short order by the same traits that had made her such an effective head teacher in Portwenn. That had included a fierce concern and advocacy on their behalf when attention or attitude had proved lacking from an overwhelmed medical staff. In a couple of instances, she'd shown herself quite ready to combat dismissive doctors and consultants. In one particular case, she'd even come to enlist Martin's aid for a patient suffering abdominal pain that would have otherwise needlessly gone under the knife. That alliance had revealed to Louisa that there was value to Martin's brusqueness and tactlessness when turned against aloof and disdainful medical professionals who might insist that they always knew better.

Louisa had regaled her fellow patients and the medical staff alike with her stories of how she had not quite given birth in the back of a taxi, _however…_ Those tales had also included how she had wrested control of the run-away taxi, and how she herself had been rescued by her knight who'd come to her in pursuit. After having delivered the baby in a pub and during transport to hospital with their healthy and thriving, if slightly pre-term newborn, Louisa had lost more blood suffering primary postpartum haemorrhaging. Yet thanks to aggressive treatment, in which Martin had played no small part, now all was well. Other than an extended hospital stay, the only other consequence was her continued dietary and supplementary treatment for anemia.

It had been Dr. Edith Montgomery's good fortune that she had not had to face Louisa in her role as fierce warrior armed as a new mum during her hospital stay. At that time Louisa had forthrightly asked Martin about Edith. In a rare display of his forthright understanding of Louisa's right to know, he had told her, "You will have no further dealings with Dr. Montgomery, and neither will I." It was a subject that she had intended to discuss at greater length with Martin while confined to hospital- along with _one or two_ other subjects that had been on her mind, including a clearer understanding of Martin's haemophobia status. However, preoccupations with the demands of feedings, rest, doctors, rest, visitors, feedings, and rest had meant largely postponing those intentions. She was thinking maybe time would finally allow on their drive back to Portwenn. In the meantime, she wryly hoped that perhaps Martin's phobia of the red-stuff had been replaced by a phobia of a certain red-head.

…

"Dr. Sanjay, hello," Louisa said with some slight surprise since they'd both spoken to her earlier at length and had already said their goodbyes preparing for their discharge.

"Miss Glasson, I know you're on your way out but I just wanted to remind you to please call me personally anytime should you have any more questions or should any concerns arise."

"Thank you. You've already done a great job of explaining everything including what the Haemotologist discussed with us- then of course Martin couldn't help himself from saying everything all over again."

"Of course. Do remember that my husband is a surgeon too- and all we talked about earlier. There were times when our kids were born that he couldn't help himself being a pest… it turns out that it's part of what makes him a great dad," Dr. Sanjay confided in her.

…

From the hospital car park, Martin drove his Lexus to the pickup area at the front of the hospital. Following a _minor_ deviation in the birth plan, the baby seat and the loads of essentials had come to hospital after being retrieved from Louisa's by Auntie Joan. Martin had installed the baby seat earlier after he'd studiously read all the instructions and had fastidiously checked its seatbelt and had made all the adjustments. Also previously he'd had to set about picking up the last fragments of shattered glass that remained from the broken vodka bottle littering the floor of the backseat. To Martin's great relief, the precious golden statue that it had struck had remained intact. He'd feared worse when he'd heard that crash as he was racing to Louisa in peril riding with Tommy of Tommy's ill-fated Taxi.

Martin's golden statue was a Medicine Buddha, also known as Bhaiṣajyaguru, and it was no mere collectable statuary. It was in fact revered by some for being instilled with great healing powers; by others it was esteemed for its ability to concentrate their own healing abilities on the path to enlightenment; to others still it served as a fount for relief for all the suffering they had come to endure. Over his years in Portwenn it had assuredly come to mean a great deal to Martin. Now it was safe and sound again behind its own seatbelt, back from where it had been moved previously to make room for Tommy as they had sped him to the pub- lest he literally die for a drink.

With the car readied in position, Martin opened the boot in preparation for receiving the collection of flowers in place of the emptied moving boxes and suitcases that had already went back to Portwenn courtesy of Aunt Joan's truck. He carefully checked all of the car seat positions and adjusted his mirrors for the trip and took another look around the inside of the car to ensure that everything was in order.

With a deep breath, he took a moment to remind himself of how just a few days ago everything had changed with his life's course being altered when he had stopped to save Tommy's wife. Just moments before he had been setting off for a new life in London very much alone. Shortly thereafter, he was forced to face his greatest fear of forever losing the true love of his life- whether or not they could ever be together, with the sight of Louisa and Tommy's crashed taxi. Instead this course of events had brought him to Louisa's side to welcome into the world the brand new life that they'd made.

Martin corrected himself out loud, "Three. New. Lives."

…_end of Chapter 1_


	2. Chapter 2

**Going Home**

_**Initial Verse II**_

_Hearts beat as ode not so as elegy!_

_Beloved of my love is all my life's blood_

_And thus exceeds that mere biology._

_O! let the seep flow, gush, spurt, and flood!_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

"There's Daddy!" Louisa said coming down the corridor just as Martin had come back in the hospital entrance to meet them.

The look on Louisa's face was positively glowing. Those words and that look affected Martin with an unfamiliar warm glow as well. Often at moments of profound emotion like this Martin could not help but to process them into an acutely clinical response. He would unwittingly be taking note of the high levels of oxytocin that Louisa was experiencing postpartum that were elevated further due to her breastfeeding. These levels would be higher still as stimulated by pair-bonding hormonal releases: by virtue of his staying close to her since giving birth and with admission to hospital and decidedly not going to London. Yet with the same looks and touches of Louisa and of their baby, these life-changing events were stimulating the very same oxytocin releases in himself. For reasons he consciously did not quite understand, his uncharacteristic response to this uncharacteristic secretion resulted instead in an actual, authentic smile.

Together they proceeded out the doors and into the world as father, mother, and baby. They reached the waiting car and while still wearing the very same smile, Martin delicately lifted the still sleeping baby from Louisa's cradled arms, stepped from the curb and reached across the back seat to gently nestle the baby into his car seat.

"Watch his head now Martin," Louisa called out from the wheelchair behind him.

"Yes, I am," Martin replied not yet fully realizing what every new father comes to learn: he's suddenly begun a lifetime of seeming to lack the common sense that God gave geese when it came to their offspring in the eyes of their mothers.

With help from the hospital porter, Louisa had him place into the car the loads of stuff that she would learn she could never be far away from again: fresh nappies with all their accoutrements, blankets, towels, wipes, the beastly breast pump she would learn to hate, as well as the full bottles that she'd expressed earlier in hospital. This was in addition to all her own personal gear which, had it not been kindly retrieved from home on her behalf, would otherwise still be sitting by her front door still waiting for the big day. Meanwhile, Martin together with help from the other hospital porter was busy loading into the boot all the flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals of various pedigree that had been sent to welcome the baby from the well-wishers of Portwenn. Louisa and Martin both thanked their hospital escorts for their help and bid them goodbye.

"Don't you think I should sit next to the baby for the ride back?" Louisa asked Martin indicating the occupied seat.

"Oh right. Of course."

"But, your statue…?"

"Yes- I'll get that… its quite valuable," Martin said as he abruptly came back to reopen the door, reach in and gently take the Buddha statue out so that Louisa could sit alongside the baby. He carefully laid it on the roof of the car and climbed into the driver's seat to make the necessary seat adjustments to accommodate this arrangement. Louisa settled herself into the car and made herself comfortable next to the baby apparently just in time as the baby began to squirm.

"Oh Martin, could you look in my bag for the baby's neck collar?"

At this request, Louisa and Martin shared a wide-eyed but silent look with thoughts of a certain village chemist and her ever present cervical collar. That dubious collar had managed to become a permanent fixture to its wearer, as had Mrs. Tishell's efforts to collar Martin's affections.

Martin rummaged through the bags placed in the front seat. He had much to learn about the baby paraphernalia which unbeknownst to him was about to overtake their lives, let alone his car.

"Do you see it? Its pink, Martin."

"Pink?"

"Yes, Martin. Don't get to worrying- there'll be no need to tell our son that his mum used to take him all around Cornwall wearing a pink neck pillow."

"Ahh… got it," Martin remarked as he pulled it from the bottom confines of the bag. Yet doubts arose in his mind as he held it dangling in mid-air noting its curious padding and architecture- even if it was assuredly pink. Only with greater studious inspection of its various flaps, straps, and clasps, did it occur to him that this was surely too flimsy for proper neck support.

"Er, Martin… wrong bag. That would be my nursing bra."

"Right," he replied and began to search in the correct bag where he quickly found the infant neck collar and passed it back to Louisa.

"Any trouble getting it on then?" Martin asked after a while until he turned around in his seat to try to see for himself.

"Yes, just there. How's that feel now my little lamb, much more comfortable?" Louisa said softly before turning to Martin. "Not only did I manage not to wake him up- I think he actually looks ready now for reentry."

"Reentry?" Martin noted as he mentally dissected Louisa's little joke before adding dryly, "I thought we'd just spent the last 30 minutes preparing for lift-off."

And that is just what they did- pulling away from the curb and leaving behind Truro Hospital with Portwenn and home ahead. To anyone else who might have noticed just then, their return journey would be overseen by a very fine golden Medicine Buddha statue that would be riding along rather precariously atop the roof of the Lexus.

…_end of Chapter 2_


	3. Chapter 3

**Going Home**

_**Martial Bliss**_

_Not shield of __warrior famoused for fight*_

_Nor Mars his sword**__ lower'd from fears._

_No armoured hearts, assailed of doubt, unite._

_To no happy victor, a spoil of tears._

*Sonnet 25 by William Shakespeare

**Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

Now underway behind the wheel of the car, Martin's mind began to wander to the events of the past few days as he, Louisa, and their new baby began their return journey to Portwenn. He recalled how it had been the morning after the baby's sudden delivery when he had followed Louisa and the baby in the ambulance on their way to hospital: with the rush, the confusion, the concerns, and finally the calm that had followed. Although Auntie Joan had arrived at hospital soon after he had called her with the news of the baby (notwithstanding her apparent premonition of the birth), Martin had sent her home early that morning to get some sleep. That's when he had been greeted with the ghastly exhibit and outburst.

"Congratulations Doc!" PC Joseph Penhale said as he surprised Martin from behind with a lunging man-hug. Martin waited for the horrid display to be over while standing frozen in the hospital corridor, well before official visiting hours, before Penhale added, "Two wrongs _do_ make a right, and now you're a real dad!"

"What are you doing here?" Martin asked with an otherwise stolid grimace once released from Penhale's clutches.

"I've just come to share your happy news Doc, look!" Penhale said pointing down the hospital hallway to the extravagant flower arrangement which was far more fitting for the winner's circle of a world famous horserace than a hospital room.

"Well, they're resting. You'll have to wait," Martin sputtered.

"Give us a chance for some of that male-bonding time then, eh Doc? I had to pull rank with the hospital staff since I needed to be here for you, sort of a police emergency so it's alright," Penhale said now rocking on his heels in his most commanding stance.

"Now you have someone to carry on the family name. I've always wanted a son of my own, you know, to carry on after me. You know after stuffin' off this mortal coil? Now you have your very own offspring, your own little man," Penhale gleamed enviously.

Joe Penhale was Portwenn's current affable yet idiosyncratic Police Constable. Although Martin held to the opinion that Penhale's demeanor was more than a little contrary to stable. PC Penhale's quirky ways had much to do with him literally being kicked in the head by a horse while on duty years ago. As for Martin's ways, they had much to do with him figuratively being kicked in the head by an ass- two of them actually; he'd called them Mum and Dad. His childhood had suffered and endured two completely horrible and self-involved parents. Far more ruinous than even these attributes was their utter lack of ability, let alone any real desire, to deal with one another for the sake and welfare of their child.

Amidst such a dysfunctional family, a ferociously bright child like Martin had concentrated his intelligence on how things work and more aptly how they don't. His overly analytical mind had formed in childhood while straining to make sense of a world experienced with but a scant sense of love or belonging. In the continuing absence of such emotions, his habit of such constant analysis became the reflex. The intricate workings of machinery or computers might have become the object of his fascination but as fate and his father's vocation would have it, it was the inner workings of the human body that captivated his psyche and his choice of career.

Martin's sole loving relationship as a child came from his Auntie Joan who initially his parents were only too glad to send him away for visits to far off Portwenn. Yet even before the trials of adolescence, Martin's parents deliberately set out to deprive him of this relationship as well. Therefore it was with only this latent sense of security, love, intimacy, and belonging that young Martin was launched into adulthood. Martin's despicable parents and their abject relationship spared him every consideration and any deliberation that Martin's newborn son be named with any connection to them whatsoever.

"You know Doc, it's not too late to change the baby's name. Joseph is a very manly name too you know," Penhale proposed only to be met with Martin's blank stare and a long silent pause.

"Doc?"

"Doc?"

…

"Martin?"

"Martin?" Louisa called from the back seat of the car.

"Yes?" Martin finally answered once roused from his ruminations.

"Did I tell you Martin that Joe Penhale wanted to give us a full police escort today all the way back to Portwenn?" Louisa said grinning while contemplating Martin's reaction.

"Oh, no," Martin muttered with great annoyance while cautiously looking about the Truro traffic for any sign of PC Penhale's van with blue lights ablaze.

"Don't worry. I talked him out of it," Louisa said with some amusement.

"Yes, and I had to talk him out of any notion that we would have named our son in honour of an imbecile," Martin remarked with his voice more preternaturally devoid of humour. "One cannot speak to Penhale without feeling much more intelligent."

"Oh, Martin," Louisa said. "He's being sweet. But not as sweet as you- thank you for the baby's name."

"Louisa?" Martin asked, "Another thing Penhale was going on about at first, and Aunt Joan had said something to the effect as well…"

"Oh, gosh. Auntie Joan! I promised to ring her when we were leaving," Louisa interrupted fumbling for her mobile and then beginning to dial.

"Joan, Hi!… Yes, we've just left the hospital… He's sound asleep, all tucked in… I'm fine, fine- feeling better every minute… Daddy?… Yes, he's helping with everything… He is… And learning fast… 'Enough with the stool samples'," Louisa carried on talking to Joan on her mobile while Martin listened from the driver's seat to the one-way conversation punctuated with giggles which he was sure were somehow at his expense. "…Did you? Oh, lovely… Plenty of iron… Yeah, galactagogues… True… A science fiction alien… No… Wait 'til the red cabbages… Perfect... No, no… I will… He will… Alright… Love to his Gran… Thank you for everything Joan… Love you… Bye-bye."

"Martin, Joan has a whole lovely dinner waiting for us when we get back," Louisa said as if translating for Martin as she rang off.

"I see, cabbage. Is that what we're having?" he asked.

"Well, no. No, a lovely pot roast with plenty of vegetables from her garden. The cabbage isn't for eating, really…" Louisa paused before adding, "I'll tell you later."

"Martin, do you remember Fiona from the hospital?" Louisa asked.

"No," Martin answered blankly.

"She was the new mother with the big baby," Louisa went on to elaborate. "She had the terrible pain that once her doctor finally examined her he wanted to send her for surgery for her appendix."

"Yes," Martin replied as the medical context brought the individuals and events back to mind.

Louisa had met Fiona when they chatted together on the ward. While still recovering, Fiona began to suffer abdominal pain that her doctor ascribed to cramping for which she was treated simply with paracetamol. As the pain increased acutely thereafter, Louisa found herself urging Martin to intervene. While the woman's doctor focused, perhaps hastily on a diagnosis of appendicitis, Martin began asking his own questions. Despite nausea but still an inconclusive ultrasound, the appendicitis diagnosis had appeared premature to Martin. He was the first to notice and inquire about her now removed belly button piercing and to make a connection with her details of the onset of the pain. As he learned of her medical history and that her doctor was still demurring a CT scan, he pressed, in his inimitable style, for an alternate diagnosis.

"Well, I'm trying to understand the whole blood thing," Louisa started to ask. "How did you know it was that thrombo thing?"

"Well," as Martin began his medical discourse. "Postpartum thrombosis is a significant risk to the mother. The pain was from the thrombosis blocking the blood flow; it's second only to PPH, or postpartum haemorrhaging as a maternal risk following birth."

Martin paused before continuing, "Your friend Frieda, given her risk factors should have been scanned and screened for additional hypercoagulation factors."

"And hypercoagulation means what?" Louisa asked with anticipation that he would not overburden his explanation with medical jargon.

"Well, hypercoagulation is naturally occurring in pregnancy- it's the woman's body anticipating and protecting against heavy blood loss during delivery. Essentially, Frieda's blood clotted much more so thereby creating a risk for a thrombosis given her extended bed-rest, weight, and delivery. And there are even not so rare genetic mutations that indicate hypercoagulation that she should have been tested for. All together that could very well have led to an embolism or in some cases possibly an aneurysm."

"Is hypercoagulation a risk for the baby then too?"

"No, rather the opposite condition. That's why when we first came to hospital the baby was given… Or, what I should say is that it's standard practice to give babies an injection of vitamin K right after being born to raise their blood's coagulation to higher, that is to say, safer or healthier levels."

"In other words, to maintain the proper blood flow."

"Yes, that's correct," Martin said pleased that his explanation was clearly conveyed.

"Then how about the postpartum haemorrhaging?" Louisa asked.

"Well, it has various causes and presentations."

"I mean, what about my mine, that is my blood-loss?"

"Ah. Well, in the ambulance on the way to hospital, at that stage it's termed early…" he began before Louisa clarified.

"No Martin. I mean when I began bleeding again on the way and they rushed me in. You followed me and although the bleeding had stopped, there was all that blood everywhere. Still you stayed with me the whole time including afterwards when you insisted they go ahead with the blood transfusion…"

"Actually, it was packed red-blood cells…"

"What I mean is… the thing is, I watched you the whole time Martin- you were never sick, you never broke into a sweat, you never even looked away, not even when you were barking orders at the other doctors. I know I was getting scared, but you were completely calm and steady and in control. There was no haemophobia. No problems at all. Martin, what has happened to the your phobia now, the blood problem?"

"I don't, I mean, I well… I don't understand," Martin stammered.

"Martin, you do know what I mean!" Louisa bellowed. "Before the baby was born you were going back to London going back to surgery. I thought you had overcome the haemophobia and I was so happy for you. But I was still so confused about everything and what you wanted. And… and, then just as my doubts were fading- then there was the blood- I mean the baby's blood, and then my blood… Martin- please, please tell me," Louisa implored.

"Louisa, listen. Please," Martin said as he spoke intently into Louisa's eyes in the rearview mirror. "What I am saying, is that I do not understand."

…_end of Chapter 3_


	4. Chapter 4

**Going Home**

_**Primum Non Nocere**_

_Love grows unbound: in strength, in depth, in gain._

_It heeds no Muse for words of lure or charm._

_But when, most dear, thy tongue gives sting and pain,_

_I cry my Love, whereof: first, do no harm?_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

"Yewwwh," sounded from within the infant car seat.

Louisa bent over close to the baby to softly coo, "Oh, what is it my sweet?"

She watched intently trying to read all the signs, sounds, and scents that her newborn might be communicating. There was but a brief flutter of eyelids and a drawn out breath before the quiet calm and gentle rhythm of sleep returned. Louisa continued to watch closely while Martin watched her in the mirror awaiting further report.

"He's settled again," Louisa leaned forward to tell Martin while exercising her hushed 'baby's-sleeping' voice.

"I'll turn on some quiet, soothing music," Martin said reaching for the car radio.

"[click]…On Radio Portwenn. We welcome our Doc and our Headmistress who are coming home this very day with precious newborn Master Ellingham. Remember- every man has the right to be wrong, eh Doc? And now back to… [radio crackles]… [classical music plays]…"

"What the…?" Martin began to bluster.

"Oh, my!" Louisa interrupted with some alarm.

Martin abruptly held his tongue and listened for further sounds stirring from the baby. Meanwhile another glance in the rearview mirror revealed Louisa sitting bolt upright with eyes starkly open wide.

"Is everything alright Louisa?" he asked after a long pause.

"I'm- just wet," she answered sheepishly at first.

"Pardon me?"

"I'm leaking- it's my breasts, they're leaking. I know it happens, but it's a rather strange sensation."

"Right," Martin responded timidly.

"Funny how it just flows," she said with some amazement. "Now that my milk has come in. And here I was actually starting to get a little worried about just the opposite."

"What do you mean?" Martin asked.

"Well, my breasts- they're swelling and they're firm and you can feel how full they are now."

"Martin…"

"Martin!" Louisa wondered if speaking so unabashedly was making Martin a little uncomfortable despite his persistent professional persona. Or perhaps Martin was more susceptible to that special power women have over men (also known as cleverage), than she had previously realized?

"Yes!" Martin blurted out despite his every effort to sound nonchalant.

"It's Okay Martin, there's no pain or discomfort though. That's why I'm supposed to nurse every chance I have and to pump each time too," Louisa explained.

"Yes, that's right," Martin affirmed.

"Do you know about engorgement?"

"Martin?"

"Martin!" Louisa again had to jolt Martin from his wandering attention.

"What?"

"I was just going to say, I know that I need to be wary of breast engorgement. It's supposed to be rather painful, but worse- the milk stops flowing. Like I was saying, it's pretty much the opposite of what was just happening."

Louisa was weighing in her mind whether or not now was a good time to describe to him what the red cabbages from Aunt Joan's garden were being saved for. Should breast engorgement begin to trouble her, she would wrap their cool and bright purple leaves around each bare breast. This age-old treatment applied to full throbbing breasts with the leaves cut with appropriate openings for each nipple, would provide soothing relief to treat the engorgement quite nicely. After further thought, she decided that this description might best wait for when Martin wasn't driving and she wasn't competing for his concentration on the road. She decided instead that it would be a good time to change the subject since there was much more she still hoped to discuss. Plus a demonstration with the cabbage leaves would be far more effective than simply giving a description.

"Martin, we were talking before?" Louisa asked.

"Yes, you mean about your friend?" Martin replied with refocused thoughts.

"Well, no. I mean about surgery and the blood."

"Oh, right."

"I can see… well, I know how important being a surgeon is for you. It's so clearly a gift, a very special gift- that is that I think it's just one of your gifts."

"Yes, I suppose."

"I was talking to Dr. Sanjay about it."

"Oh?"

"Well she gave me her experience and insight into surgeons. She described for me what it's like for a surgeon during surgery where so much is a matter of life and death. She says it's not about their ego and really it's quite the opposite. She says that surgeons describe these experiences that demand all their concentration and all their skills as coming with a great sense of clarity and that it's more like becoming completely ego-less. All stress disappears, the very concept of time is lost, and there's nothing but this incredible focus."

"Yes, I've heard that characterization before."

"The way Dr. Sanjay describes it, is that it's not exclusively mastered by surgeons alone. She says it's routinely experienced by top athletes, artists, and musicians and that anyone who applies themselves can begin to experience it. It's supposed to be like this whole other state of consciousness that's been called 'being in the zone' amongst other terms. Is that how it feels for you?" Louisa asked.

"Well, it's more like not feeling anything at all or actually, even thinking about anything either," Martin said struggling to put it into words of his own.

"Mmmm, Okay. Well the thing is, I know the experience too or something quite like it. It happens when I'm teaching. It happens to the students, or a group of them, or sometimes just a single student or during certain lessons. It feels like there's suddenly this spark and they've tapped into this part of themselves they never knew was there," Louisa said with her own sense of the inadequacy of words.

"Do you mean that you're experiencing it or the children are?"

"Yes! Both, you see. The children can't share their ideas fast enough. Kids will shoot their hands up faster than you can call on them, kids that before you could barely pry their hands out of their laps. I've had students who are so absorbed in a lesson or a subject that I can't get them to put their work away so we can move on to the next lesson! Its not about exams and its not about their marks. I can't say that they've somehow 'discovered themselves' in the process, but it feels to me like they've discovered the means that they might find themselves."

"Yes. More like a way than a destination- maybe that sounds rather like an 'Eastern' way to put it," Martin said in a manner that took Louisa by surprise.

"Well, the thing is Martin, it's happened many times with _you _too. I could feel it happening to _you_. It happened when you saved Peter Cronk. And Caroline, and Danny, and of course Holly too. Every time it wasn't about your job, even done superbly, and expertly, and selflessly, with all your dedication. Those times Martin when I've seen you like that, the real you…"

…_end of Chapter 4_


	5. Chapter 5

**Going Home**

_**To Cultivate**_

_His engaged and her husband-to-be,_

_At the altar both proved absentee._

_Their doubts great - yet talk sparse:_

_Happy- 'in a pig's arse!'_

_Woe to those who forsake husbandry._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

"Hello sweet-pea… someone is stirring again, Martin," Louisa announced as the baby squealed and began to squirm fittingly. "It's not too early for him to be hungry again. I'm sorry, Martin. Can we stop off to feed him and check his nappy."

"Er, you mean when we get to Wadebridge?"

"Well no, just here off the road, that should be alright- just there at the drive-thru…"

As Martin looked out on the desolate moor he had to ask again, "Where?"

"Somewhere here, anywhere off the road is fine, Martin. It was a joke. I'd call it 'Mum's Drive-in Service'. I'm picturing a whole chain," Louisa said with amusement at the mental imagery she thought Martin might be able to share.

When they'd pulled safely off the road, Louisa unstrapped her now wriggling and seemingly famished baby. She undid her blouse and opened her nursing bra, and the baby eagerly began to nurse. All the world's problems vanished as the baby settled in to the warm loving touch of his mother.

Remaining in the driver's seat facing forward, Martin sat rather tautly quiet. His usual stony countenance and locution had only just left him for a time as they had talked during their drive. Perhaps he'd been protected by the full potency of Louisa's beauty by the reflection of the rearview mirror, much like the polished shield of Perseus.

On the silent moor, Martin's intermittent glances in the mirror watching Louisa soon were captivated by the sight of her loving care of the baby; her tender caresses, her gentle assurances, her nuzzled warmth, and her soft expressions of love. Before long his shy glances gave way to a steady gaze.

Nursing serenely, Louisa soon settled into such a moment of intimacy that she'd longed for her entire life as the sweet aura arose to encompass Martin as well. Her glances encountered Martin's eyes in the mirror before also yielding to a gaze that readily gave way to her smile and her easy confluence of emotion.

Gazes too soon gave way to an unabashed stare until Martin was so transfixed that there was no way for him to look away as he took in the sight of all of her.

"Louisa?"

"Yes?"

"You look so very…" Martin only began to say before being interrupted by his mobile ringing. He answered it by reflex with little thought to why the Portwenn Surgery might be calling him.

"Yes," Martin uttered curtly.

"Hello, Doc?" Pauline called out over the speakerphone. "I hate to bother you but…"

"Pauline, I'm rather beautiful here," Martin answered sternly. Ever so slowly, his brain began alerting him that this wasn't quite what he'd meant to say.

"I'm sure that you are Doc," Pauline answered while barely choking back incredulity as well as some rather serious chortles. "Anyway- the new doctor is making me call to ask you..."

"What is it then?" Martin asked crossly recomposing himself under the auspices of his more familiar gruffness.

Pauline chalked it up to another recent sign that the Doc was going bodmin and proceeded to inquire, "The new Doc wants to change the lab courier schedule- but I said I wouldn't bet a pound to a penny that it makes any difference…"

While Martin talked with Pauline to the drone of the everyday minutiae of running the surgery, Louisa's thoughts wandered from her beautiful baby continuing to nurse. She recalled the initial flurry of activity of the past few days and all that had changed with it. There had been fits of sleep both day and night between bouts of caring for the baby, soreness, and exhaustion all of which contributed to a certain disorientation. Focus had been gradually restored with thoughts of home and life in Portwenn that had come along with all the anticipated visitors to her hospital bed.

…

"Louisa he's a beautiful little lad and the whole village can't wait to meet 'im. Always knew this day would come for you- ever since you was a little girl," thus sounded the euphonious voice of Bert Large.

"Oh, thank you Bert," Louisa had responded with genuine affection. "He is beautiful isn't he?"

"He sure is," Al agreed before asking a little anxiously. "So, where's the Doc?"

"He's just gone to check on Tommy and Tasha."

Bert shared an apprehensive sideways look with Al and said with a diversionary chuckle, "You just remind the Doc that we were only tryin' to help. After all, we all get it wrong sometimes don' we? No one knows that better than the Doc, eh?"

Bert and Al Large couldn't be sure just how much Louisa had learned of their part in the biofuel fiasco that had contributed to the accident of Tommy's Taxi. This latest enterprise, despite Bert's usual best of intentions, had turned into yet another experience for plumbing new depths of incompetence. Bert's position as Portwenn's all-time philosopher was more assured than that of its one-time plumber, some-time entrepreneur, and currently full-time restaurateur.

"We 'eard they was gonna be okay then?" Al said with his full interest at redemption.

"Yes, they're going to be fine," Louisa reassured them before sensing some other disquiet. "Bert, I think you'd like to hold the baby."

Bert eagerly accepted and gratefully scooped up the baby into his arms.

"Dad don' care much for hospitals," Al volunteered as an explanation for his father's subdued bearing.

"No, last time was to see an ol' mate," Bert related.

"Now there was a bloke who never learnt to 'go with the flow'," Al interjected.

"That's true 'innit. He'd only went in for a simple hernia operation. Next day I come to see 'im and they tell me he was dead."

"Oh, that's terrible," Louisa said consolingly still aware that there were other reasons for Bert's dislike of hospitals.

"Yeah, died like all of a sudden. I think the docs called it an 'erotic aneurysm'," Bert attested with a mournful shake of the head.

"Dad…" Al indicated with a nod that they'd best change the subject.

"You was always such a little mum, Louisa. 'Member you as a lit'le girl pushin' yer dolls all 'round the village in the pram?" Bert said thinking back to long ago in Portwenn.

"You remember that?"

"Of course I do. Then when you was older you was mindin' the actual wee ones and takin' charge of all of 'em."

"Course that was before you met your match minding me as a nipper," Al joined in with his own memories and a laugh. "Then I 'member jus' gettin' in a bit of barney, eh?"

"Oh you were never much trouble. Although, I do remember a particular time when I found you dismantling your Dad's brand new clock-radio."

"Well, the only trouble was figurin' how to put it all back together. But come to think of it, you made me 'pologise to Dad in writin' that note 'n all before he got home- saved me dinnit'?"

"Still got that letter somewheres," Bert added. "Knowin' you was sorry kept you from a good wiggin', eh boy? Besides, we got that ol' clock working just fine once your ol' Dad got his tools out to help. Kept perfect time after that- twice a day."

Louisa thought of her long ago time in Portwenn and her long line of young charges under her care over the years. It was something for which she'd always had a special gift as well as a special effect on the children themselves. No less than what she hoped for herself on her own; that is to say, for her own children. Not that she was as conflicted that she'd be on her own now with their own child. As for parenting with good discipline with their own child- well, that was just another area where she and Martin had managed to talk so very little. She took some comfort from their experiences with children in the village and believed that she and Martin shared the same values and priorities for children's need of good discipline. Louisa felt sure that at the very least they shared the same philosophy that children should not be nasty, or ill-mannered, or behave like animals; in other words: children should be seen and not herded.

Despite growing up with a dodgy father and a flighty mother, Louisa had always felt loved- mostly when one or both parents were around to generally pay attention. Yet it had hardly been a solid or secure upbringing even before Louisa's mother had left her on her bohemian quests until finally coming to desert her. So Louisa had done what she had had to as a young girl; she had taken care of her family and herself. She was decidedly responsible, thoughtful, warm-hearted, and caring for all and thereby could not fail to be taken into the hearts of her fellow villagers.

Louisa's early experiences had trained her to look and see deeply into people. While her parents' shortcomings had always been on display- something the rest of the village had quite readily noticed, Louisa had backed and supported them fiercely- even at times somewhat blindly. Likewise she fiercely defended the villagers of Portwenn whose worth she treasured as well, even while her parents had railed against them and their sometimes provincial 'smallness'. This experience was to become the basis for Louisa's most terrible fear which was that she might judge people unfairly, or erroneously, or far too hastily. To be so very wrong about somebody, anybody- long before their true selves might be revealed was what she considered to be the most grievous of sins.

Louisa watched Bert with great pleasure as he tenderly held the baby cradled in his arms with Al standing over and looking over his father's shoulder.

"Pauline really wanted to come Louis'er, but the new Doc has her busy changing everything around- 'cept of course 'er promised new phlebotomy clinic," Al lamented.

"Oh, is Pauline alright then?" Louisa asked.

"Oh, yeah- I think. Well, as long as Pauline don' get stood up by the new doc again and made to miss another of 'er meetings," Al worried. "You know, I sure can picture Paulie with a lit'le nipper like this, eh?"

Louisa could see how Al was keenly fascinated with the baby's intricacies and the delicateness of his tiny fingers. She watched how both Al and Bert stared so intently at his untroubled face. Louisa could not help but notice the smallness of that new life held against Bert's large frame and it felt like an apt measure of what she was feeling was the scale of the task that lay ahead.

…

Louisa listened in the back seat of the car to Martin's conversation with Pauline tail-off just as the baby's nursing began to ebb.

"Pauline, all your answers are there in the spreadsheets I prepared," Martin barked into the speakerphone.

"Then you agree with me, Doc- knew you would," Pauline said smugly. "So, your escape from Portwenn- didn't last huh? 'Just when you thought you were out… they pull you back in', eh?"

"Are we done Pauline?"

"Oh, its just Al- he hasn't stopped talking about the baby since he visited, and I was wondering…"

"Later, Pauline. Goodbye," Martin rang off abruptly.

"You okay Martin?" Louisa asked once there was silence.

"Yes, of course."

"It was _your_ surgery for quite a while," Louisa said thinking of Martin's frail confidence. "Would you like to do the honours of burping your son so I can pump before we get going again?"

…_end of Chapter 5_


	6. Chapter 6

**Going Home**

_**Être Berceuse* **_

_Now my little baby blue,_

_Go to sleep, it calls to you._

_Rest before the lambs do play,_

_In lush meadows none will stray._

_._

_Now my little baby blue,_

_Softly hear me hush and coo._

_Puppies wait to run your way,_

'_Til they hear you call their stay._

_._

_Now my little baby blue,_

_Dreams so sweet, they all come true._

_Cherubs do all watch and pray,_

' _Til you wake from dreams today._

_._

_Close your eyes- be made anew,_

_Know how much that I love you._

_Dreams so sweet, they all come true,_

_Now my little baby blue._

_._

_Now my little baby blue,_

_Dreams so sweet, they all come true._

_._

*lullaby to the melody of 'Twinkle,Twinkle, Little Star'

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

"Yes, we surely have a happy son once again," Louisa said.

"Better place a towel over my shoulder first."

"Excellent! Oh Martin, you _are_ learning!"

"Huh? Ah, yes. Well, one of us is. Last time he regurgitated and it went right down my collar even with towel," Martin dryly remarked. "And no, you don't need to laugh."

"True. Well, maybe just a little. Ready?" Louisa asked reaching a hand across the seat to help Martin adjust the towel.

On synchronized cue, Martin turned in his seat and extended his hands towards Louisa signaling his readiness. The soundless maneuver was not very unlike a practiced slow-motion rugby handover by which the baby was passed from one parent to the other. It would come to be a maneuver repeated countless times.

"Sorry, looks like we've lost a bootie," Louisa said plucking the baby's soft-knit bootie that dropped to the seat. "Martin, do you know who gave these to us?"

"Someone sent it with a basket of flowers."

Examining it closely as it dangled from the end of her fingertips, she noted pleasantly, "They're just lovely. Though they are a rather bright yellow- and someone imagined his feet would be unusually…"

"Right- wait, do you know a 'Dolores Sotheby'?"

"Oh? Let me think. No, not someone from the village."

"Likely not a patient either given her symptoms," Martin went on to explain his diagnosis of sheer deduction. "She's either suffered neuropsychological trauma or has acute dyslexia- much of her printing on the card was mirror reversed."

"Okay, right- well the baby's feet are warm again. Don't want him to catch a chill," Louisa said with the booties refitted and with raised eyebrows as to why Martin was compelled to make everything a medical riddle to be solved.

"Did you say 'a chill'?" Martin asked rhetorically of this ascribed deplorable condition that medical professionals and fathers everywhere for had long held circumspect.

Martin held the baby over his shoulder carefully aiming the potentially volatile parts away from his neck and suit. Carefully attuned to the underlying anatomy and the physics of fluid dynamics, his supporting arm helped maintain measured pressure on the baby's abdomen against his upper chest. He proceeded to gently jostle, tap, and rub the baby's back to chase away any gulps of air from the tiny tummy. He began a rhythmic motion using the heel of his hand punctuated by soft taps with his heavy thumb. He shifted the angle of their conjoined bodies to employ gravity to permit the gaseous components to consolidate and thereby vent in a quite scientific manner to the oesophagus. At the optimum angle the venting would provide a smooth, if not gentle, relief of gaseous pressure rather than the messy expulsion of a mixture of fluid and gas with which he was already too familiar.

Louisa watched this silhouette of activity from the backseat whilst sounds of the rapid patter of the breast pump filled the inside of the car. She could only watch Martin's mouth and lips move as he softly spoke unknown words that would not rise above the mechanized hum; the effect looking to her almost as if they were sharing some rather intense secrets. She saw how Martin turned his head sharply so as to cradle the baby's soft fontanelle against his larynx so he'd feel his Daddy's soothing low bass voice as much as hear it as he divulged those secrets. The tiny heartbeats of his newborn son's would thus seemingly pulse his responses back to his daddy through the very same contact. For Louisa this poignant sight of father and son aided her own technologically enhanced demonstration of the principles of fluid dynamics in ways that were rather beyond science or engineering. This moving and touching sight was before too long punctuated by a great peal of escaping air from the baby that would have made any new parent (or an accomplished bagpipe player for that matter) most proud.

"Oh, my! Great job!" Louisa exclaimed.

"Thank you," Martin answered smugly.

The look on the baby's face and his slowly blinking eyes wordlessly acknowledged the complement as well. Mother and father exchanged a satisfied smile; his perhaps only somewhat less perceptible than her own.

"And there's definitely a BM now too."

"I just need to finish pumping this side. Could you, I mean, would you change him Martin?"

"What is it _about women_- they think they _always_ need to _change us_," Martin cheekily muttered to the baby as he lifted him from his shoulder's perch.

"What's that you're telling our son?" Louisa asked straining to hear better.

"Ah, well…" Martin stammered before speaking with greater deliberateness. "Er, I said… well, I was explaining to him eructation, or as you call it- burping… what is when the _abdomen_… that through the _airways_… needs to _expunge gas_."

"Ah, you know Martin- it's going to be interesting to see how much your son takes after you," Louisa said thinking about his truly recondite ways. "Oh, and you'll find a mat in the bag you can lay there on the seat beside you."

Louisa watched Martin's meticulousness as he approached changing the dirty nappy rather like some kind of medical procedure. He carefully removed the clean nappy, the waste bag, wipes, together with their support and contingent supplies from the baby bag. These he placed at hand in deliberate order ready so as not to have to cross the sterile field once the procedure began. Although he didn't scrub in or don sterile gloves and mask, Louisa amused herself thinking about some future time when he might wish he had.

It was a small thing, but she hoped that Martin might notice how the baby's things had been prepared and well thought out; though much hadn't been so thought out in the nine months prior. Having discovered her pregnancy alone after her admittedly impetuous move to London, she'd preoccupied herself from the trepidation of facing Martin again by delving into pregnancy books, baby books, birthing videos, parenting books, breast-feeding videos, even single-parenting books, and especially every baby expecting and infant medical book she could get her hands on. She intended now to be fully current and fluent in everything to do with motherhood. Considering every or any reaction and role that Martin Ellingham might have to this situation, she was not going to put herself in a position to be beholden to him in anyway, let alone that one by virtue of his medical expertise. It certainly was a welcome diversion from dealing with all the practical aspects that she would still have to be sorted out as well. Nonetheless, she would not have him smugly lording over her for a role she'd imagined for herself her entire life. That is _unless_…

Martin found himself impressed with how thoroughly Louisa had stocked the baby bag. Everything was accorded its orderly place. Since his very first visit to Louisa's domain at the school to fill in the gap of unknowns for Bobby Richards' possible appendicitis, he'd found her well prepared and possessed of the qualities he'd have noticed in the very best senior surgical nurse. Louisa always did seem to do her homework; it wasn't a mere mantra that she espoused to her students. Of course he'd observed on some occasions at her cottage that her devotion to neatness may not have been up to his own standards. But then again, he knew it only took one or two children acting up in his surgery in a single day to throw his own such priorities into upheaval, and he shuddered at the idea of the number of such instances Louisa might have to deal with in any given day. So, if he was being totally honest with himself- well, actually come to think of it, he'd permit no excuse for it whatsoever.

"I'm all done. I'll just put all this away and then I'll trade you bottles- this one for another water bottle."

"Hold on," Martin said as he finished with the last fastenings on the baby's clothes and then gently lifted him into a sitting position onto his lap.

"He likes it when you hold him, doesn't he?"

"Well, he can't exactly say no, can he?"

"He would never say no! You know Martin, I would never say no either."

"Of course not, you asked me to."

"I'm just saying that you don't need to wait to be asked."

"Well, here you go," Martin said as he handed Louisa a water bottle and took the bottle of expressed milk to pack away in the bag. "Louisa, you've done a nice job of organizing and preparing the baby's bag."

"Thank you, Martin," Louisa said with a sigh but very grateful for the encouragement, it was high praise indeed coming from Martin Ellingham.

…_end of Chapter 6_


	7. Chapter 7

**Going Home**

_**In Loco Parentis?**_

_Going home were the new dad and mum._

_Though which home(s) and what bed(s) would they come?_

_Where together in bliss?_

_Whither Missus or Miss?_

_A question of 'locus parentum?'_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

"You know Martin, living under one roof will be only…"

"Only what?" Martin prompted after Louisa's considerable pause. "What were you going to say?"

"Um- actually I thought I might've heard something. Probably just the wind- unless it's a piskie up to mischief…" Louisa hesitated again. "Gosh, um- what was it I was going to say? Well anyway, I did want to tell you how grateful I am for all your help. Thank you."

"Certainly, you're welcome. Sleep is calling to this little one to lie down again," Martin said indicating his son who was now quite ready for sleep.

Accepting the handover of the tiny bundle, Louisa kissed the baby gently on the head and carefully laid him down into the baby seat. She fastened him in securely and once again covered him warmly. Martin watched the halcyon moment between mother and child before a mass of seabirds flying past the gathering clouds in the distance caught his eye.

"Not that we're in any great hurry to get back, are we Martin? I know we should get going again- but there's still plenty of time before it starts to get dark. It's just that it may be such a good chance to talk some more and well, it seems that maybe some of that has been happening," she said expectantly while catching her breath, "And I wanted to tell you how much, that is if you'd let me- I want to do more than just help you."

"Like how do you mean?"

"Earlier I spoke with Dr. Sanjay about you becoming a surgeon again."

"Ah, did you really," Martin replied icily.

"Really, yes. Well, she described for me how finding a different position as a locum surgeon for the short term may be ideal and would only take a minimum of retraining- and she doubted that you would have to go as far as London."

"Now did she," he hissed his words through gritted teeth. Amongst the unbidden thoughts circulating into Martin's conscious now was how even his own ghastly and narcissistic father had never lapsed in _his_ duty to materially and financially provide for _his_ son.

"She explained the new Modernizing Medical Careers programme to me and how it may complicate lots of other new positions. She also wanted to know, although I couldn't really follow this part, whether you've had dealings with the GMC about your haemophobia."

In the short time since leaving hospital, anxieties and apprehensions had again silently begun accumulating behind Martin's tortuous insecurities. Within those confines he had only just come to grapple with having had no role in Louisa's pregnancy- other than having _been there_ at the start and just barely at the end. He'd been rejected by Louisa as a prospective father standing there numbly on his doorstep whereas six months before, he'd been rejected as her prospective husband. Following that rejection, she had hastily left him in Portwenn to be alone in his wretched purgatory- much as Edith Montgomery had done twenty years earlier, when he had last dared to imagine that he could be in love.

To have been rejected yet again, no _forsaken_, by Louisa as her doctor when she then returned to the village pained him as the most manifest hurt. It pained his vestigial identity to be reminded what small means he had left to practice any form of medicine at all; the identity he'd once had, the only identity he'd ever known as an esteemed vascular surgeon, had been nearly irrevocably lost when his haemophobia had first erupted. For that ludicrous, Dantesque, bloody failure, Portwenn had become an ideal purgatory in which to condemn himself as an ordinary everyday GP.

"Please Martin, don't be defensive. We were only talking and she thought she could help."

"Help? How does it help to be reminded that, not only do I no longer seem to have a job- not in London and not in Portwenn but I can't even manage to provide a paltry roof over our head! Yet to help with the baby, I'm _also_ supposed to be retraining at the _same_ time for something less than what I have spent my whole life training for in the first place, that I can't do anymore anyway!

"Martin, you said that there were other options still for the Imperial post. Besides, there's time to sort that all out and until then we have my Head Teacher salary."

"Perfect! You'll be doing a job I would never have wanted you to do in the first place with a new baby- as if I need to remind you! All of which promises to provide the village of the damned with a diet chock full of the Recommended Daily Allowance of irony!"

"Martin, please- listen to my voice," Louisa said with the utmost solemnity and a look out the window to the placid moor for encouragement. "Be assured that I'm not going to get angry with you, no matter how much you try to prevent us from talking."

"Then I am entirely sure that the brilliant Dr. Sanjay can inform me of exactly what it is that I _should be_ doing during this time. Perhaps I can entertain the whole bloody village who haven't anything better to do than watch me with their puerile interest waiting for me to bang the Head again- er, bang _my_ head- I mean _hit _my head again!"

"Martin, we're not waking the baby and I'm simply not going to be getting upset with you- no matter how hard you try," Louisa said unruffled. She took a long, deep breath before continuing, "Now, won't you please tell me what you've already tried in order to overcome your blood phobia?"

"Oh, gawd."

"Have you tried exposure therapies and desensitization exercises? How about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?"

"Yes, I've done it all Louisa. Do you not realize that there is nothing that I wouldn't have tried by now? It's like the bloody Hydra with every challenge doubling with each attempt I make to vanquish it."

"Well, how about talking with professionals like psychologists or a psychiatrists?"

"Psycho-babble rubbish you mean?"

"No…"

"Of course I've tried it! It was as worthwhile as if I were in the middle of open surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm and rather than actually_ fix the problem_- all I did was pull off my surgical mask, lean over the open cavity, and _speak_ to the sodding artery about to rupture by beseeching it, 'How does _that_ make you _feel_?' That would certainly _fix it_!"

"Honestly, Martin. I get the impression sometimes that the reason you act the way you do is because looking in one of your big, thick medical books for some daunting Latin ailment for 'pain in the, the- _buttocks_' would reveal _your name_!" she sighed and then just as quickly wished to take it back. "Please, please stop doing it."

"Well I don't need anybody's sympathy, thank you- especially yours."

The last thing he could ever have from Louisa was her sympathy. Between the identity he couldn't seem to reclaim and the stirring sense that there was some other identity, as yet unknown, there was definitely no place for such sympathy. That place was set aside for his private purgatory and in it, he could neither pursue nor escape from her. And oh what an exquisite purgatory it was, to keep himself deprived of no more than gazing upon Louisa from afar and tormenting himself with his desperate, desperate love for her.

"No Martin you don't. Of course you don't. Just talk to me, Martin. I know it doesn't come easy for you. After all you once compared it to constipation. Haven't we just now spent the last nine months proving the perils of _not_ talking? But I know you need what I need, and it's not simply help."

"How- what- what do you mean?" he asked while finally permitting himself to resume breathing normally.

"Remember how Auntie, I mean Granny, Joan held the baby for the first time in hospital?"

"Well, yes."

"Then you saw how much she loves him. She's going to love him so very much too. Did you notice while watching them together how such a strong, feisty, and thoroughly wonderful woman could melt into a complete and total softie?" she paused with a temporary loss for words. "Joan will move heaven and earth for him."

"I know."

"And she'll do the same for you and me too. I know she's always been more to you than just an aunt- much like she's always been more to me than just a friend. Gosh, even as a little girl growing up in the village, I could feel her looking out for me and not just because- well, you know, my family. Even when I came back to the village from London she never hesitated to welcome me back and to help me in every way she could. Not everyone did you know."

"No," Martin answered meekly while shifting perhaps uncomfortably in his seat.

"We both know that Joan will do everything to help. She'll do anything possible and then some for us and the baby. She already helps everybody in the village; she's a devoted friend to one and all, and she always puts everybody else first before herself. But the fact is, she runs herself so very ragged…"

"I know that too- I've been trying to get her to take it easy for a long time already."

"The thing is Martin, it's always felt to me nonetheless that Joan is so lonely and has been for a very long time- and not because she lost Phil so long ago or that she didn't have children of her own. It's something that she was never able to find- for all the living that she's done. I think whatever it is that is missing for her accounts for her aloneness and mine as well, and yours too. It happens to be the very thing that I want too- and I believe that you want as well. And it's what I think we're supposed to have together."

"And that thing, that missing thing, is something we're going to discover sitting out here in the middle of nowhere before we get back to Portwenn?" he asked.

"No, of course not," she countered and was followed by a long pause.

"So getting married- is that what you want?"

"No! I mean yes. No, I mean- not now, not just 'because'," Louisa paused with a long sigh that she was unable to suppress from becoming a yawn. "Oh, what I wouldn't give for a real cup of tea…"

"Well, if you're getting tired we should get going," he said precipitously whilst turning to start the car.

"Bugger that! I don't want to be tired and I don't want to get going!" Louisa snapped.

"Louisa, there's no need…"

"I'm sorry, Martin. It's okay, I'm not angry with you. I just don't want to be tired again or to give in to being tired again. But I am tired of not resolving things. Back in hospital I made myself believe that somehow we'd get around to talking for once without the usual medical emergencies and the usual intrusions from the whole village. But it didn't happen. Then I convinced myself that on the long quiet drive home we'd really have that opportunity to talk. After all, what could possibly intrude on us, right? And for once, I couldn't imagine either one of us actually storming off mad- unless of course you're now planning to throw me out of the car?"

"No! No, of course not, Louisa!"

"No- I know you wouldn't. But of course my Martin I'm still sorry for that time we were together in the taxi- well, you know. Can we just have another chance to talk some more before we go home?"

"What did you say?"

"I just want… I mean, if I just can briefly close my eyes, then couldn't we talk some more afterwards- not a lot, but maybe just a little?" her plea hung in the air. "Oh my Martin, this music- could you please turn up the radio, maybe just the littlest bit?"

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes. It's _Csikszentmihalyi_ or Hungarian something or other, isn't it?"

"Well it's _Listz_ actually. It's a favourite called _Liebestäume_."

"It's so lovely… and I can tell the baby likes it too."

…_end of Chapter 7_


	8. Chapter 8

**Going Home**

_**Worse the Cure**_

_To let desire incites to let a vein:_

_It cures madding fevers, yet fates my bane;_

_Restores the balance of my every part,_

_But treat the ache, nevermore treats the heart._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

Pillowy-white clouds parted overhead and sunshine emanated down to immerse everything in a warm tranquil glow that softened every form. The air itself stirred from its prior repose arousing all it to a fresh new vibrancy. The very same brightness caught the raiment that was Louisa's simple white dress from behind to reveal her feminine silhouette and a swathe of countless delicately embroidered flowers.

Silently, without so much as an utterance, Martin reached across to place his hand promisingly upon Louisa's hip. That outstretched arm and it's meaningful touch brought a charge that radiated deeply; months of hurt and hesitancy and the icy separation they had sustained between them for so long vanished instantly to vapours. When her eyes finally found his together with recognition of the same gathering forces, she was spontaneously reminded of the inevitable physical obstruction that once again appeared situated between them. Then, noting Martin's tremulous lip which experience had taught her as portent of another cold and cutting remark, came a mortifying and overwhelming surge of anxiety; he was sure to comment callously upon her weight gain during pregnancy or remorselessly implicate her still distorted body and thus his touch would turn cruelly clinical with no purpose but dispassionate examination alone. But before she could muster the power to forestall or avert any of these terrors, the silence between them was broken.

"You possess an incandescent beauty Louisa, that makes intimates of light and warmth to outshine all the heavens combined."

Completely unheralded and contrary to her sudden rush of misgivings, those words found heartfelt purchase and reassuredly extinguished each of her burgeoning and malevolent anxieties.

"How perfect Martin!" she murmured with an audible gasp. "I was so afraid that I nearly panicked that you were going to say, well- something else. Instead you're telling me the things that I so much wanted to hear."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"Please forget I said anything and just- please, don't stop."

"Okay, though I'm not sure I follow you, weren't you just talking…"

"Martin no! Don't you dare accuse me of _that_ again!"

"Please Louisa! What happened, I-I don't understand?"

"You just accused me of _stalking_! Me, stalking! As if I was delusional or I had a disorder or I was suffering from some kind mania!"

"No, no! _Talking_- I said TALKING. I was expressing how you make me feel, I thought that is what we've been discussing- what you wanted. You know, '_talking_'."

"Oh Martin, I'm so sorry. Please, please go back to what you were saying before," she said eagerly but with growing bewilderment at the fuzziness in her head.

"Louisa, you embower my heart with the bright delicate petals of perfumed white roses, it's like you're in…"

"Stop! No, not again- why are you doing this?"

"Louisa, what is it?"

"You were about to compare me to _urine_ again- I'm like _urine_! Why must it always be spoilt!"

"No! Louisa, I didn't. I was about to tell you that 'it's like YOU ARE IN a sweet garden of delights, the two of us together'."

"You were? Oh Martin, that's so beautiful. Please, please forget what I was saying. I don't understand what's happening here. Please, go on- tell me more," she pleaded.

"But not before we get some more cigars."

Her ears must be failing her or the sound waves were playing tricks on her or they'd begun to converse in another language. Determined not to leap to yet another conclusion, Louisa could only inquire meekly, "Sorry, could I have misheard you Martin, did you just say _cigars_?"

"Yes, _cigars_."

"Martin, I think I'm really confused now. Please, help me. Why would you want cigars?"

"Sometimes, Louisa- well, they're just cigars, aren't they. They're rather symbolic, don't you think?" he said with small comfort and even less clarity to dispel Louisa's perplexed expression before finally adding, "You know, as proud parents announcing the birth of our new baby boy."

"Oh- right, right, right."

A familiar kick from the baby put a quick end to dim thoughts about cigars. That small jab and her well accustomed response of a gentle reassuring rub to her protruding belly soon reminded her that the baby had already been welcomed into the world where he now lay safe and snug unaccountably cradled in her arms.

"Mummy?"

"Yes, my darling?"

"I can feel my heart growing as if watered by the dew of your sweet voice and nourished by your tender words of ardour."

"Awww… Martin, did you hear what the baby just said to me?"

"Yes, it's true Louisa. Our hearts are growing being warmed and illuminated by all the loving vitality you emanate…"

"Oh, Martin! Do you mean that… Wait, how are you doing that, talking without even moving your mouth?" she asked straining to notice what she ought to have noticed before. "And how is the baby talking too- how can a newborn baby talk? Wait, how are both of you talking?… "

Suddenly Louisa felt herself falling rapidly backwards as the last of her words to Martin took tangible form to furiously unwind from her mouth as if prised by a whirlwind. Then her very senses became palpable and seemed to strain hard against their moorings until she could only watch helplessly as one by one they too were torn loose and tumbled away before her. Soon the imagery of everything she had just experienced and had so tightly held in her mind with all her strength, was ripped away only to recede into the same voracious vortex: with the idyllic settings of Martin, the baby, the light, the clouds, and the sky all growing dark and small and distant and remote and finally quiet; before the rush came to a certain and distinct halt.

…

"Martin! How long did I have my eyes closed? Where exactly are we now?" Louisa exclaimed while looking about frantically at the unfamiliar landscape around the car of a narrow lane tightly hemmed in by overgrown hedges.

"We are here- stopped in the middle of the bloody road by a sodding mad dog with no way round!" Martin said taking personal exception to the canine whose appearance had just brought the car to a sudden and unforeseen stop.

"What?" Louisa asked sitting bolt upright while vigorously wiping the last of the sleep from her eyes so as to focus on the large light-grayish English Sheepdog sitting rather blithely in the middle of the road just ahead of them.

"We're trapped by the bloody Beast of Bodmin!" Martin railed.

"Martin, I don't know what's going on here but that's definitely no beast. Relax, it looks perfectly friendly sitting there panting and wagging its tail. Whatever you do, don't honk the horn or do anything to wake the baby. Just wait until it moves along on it's own accord."

"This whole countryside is overrun by rabid, vicious animals. Probably waiting right now for its chance to pounce on us."

"Enough already, Martin. Look at it, it's no stray and it can't be just some farmer's dog like that: it's much too clean, well-groomed, and actually looks rather well cared for. Although what it's doing sitting there so imposingly…" Louisa quit speaking in mid-sentence to refocus her thoughts on the daylight and ambiance before ultimately checking the time. "Martin, what happened to waiting for me to wake up before leaving so we could talk some more? You waited what, let's see- ten minutes. Ten whole minutes! You let me doze for less than ten minutes before you figured you'd better drive off and forget the whole thing! Martin?"

"I thought, well- it was getting late. I thought you'd prefer to get back to Portwenn where you could have a proper nap in your own bed," Martin said with vague efforts of sincerity.

"Or you just figured you'd avoid this last chance for us to finish talking- right, Martin? Was this like a 'fight or flight' thing?"

"Well, _it's_ not moving. Probably just waiting for it's chance to attack," indicating the animal before them who was demonstrating no intention of doing either.

"Martin, what is it with you and dogs anyways? Didn't you ever have a dog or any sort of pet as a boy growing up?"

"You're asking me whether I ever deliberately exposed myself to filthy, disease-ridden creatures just waiting for their chance to chew me to pieces?"

"Oh, please," she had had just about enough of his silly protestations. "Every boy needs a dog. Isn't our little boy going to have a dog of his own someday?"

"Oh, gawd," Martin muttered thinking of the argument that he for the rare occasion could clearly see coming.

"No, think about it- it would be so sweet. She'd want to look out for him- she could be like his fairy-_dog_ mother!" Louisa remarked with a broad smile at the image forming in her head. From the look of the sturdy, resolute, and seemingly quite agreeable dog continuing to study them intently, it would not seem to be such a fantastic notion.

"Right, _that_ makes perfect sense. Perhaps the '_fairy dog_' that's blocking the road is determined to prevent us from getting back to Portwenn before it's good and…" Martin kept himself from finishing his pithy remark as the idea behind it suddenly struck him as being somewhat less ludicrous than first conceived.

"You know Martin, before you portray all this here as something so completely, utterly bizarre; you should know that I was just having the nicest, strangest dream just then before being awakened. There we were, together- really, really talking- well sort of."

"And was that the nice part or the strange part?"

"Well, the nice part was that you were telling me the most lovely and intimate things; all the things I must have wanted to hear from you, maybe things I needed to hear from you, even if they were not likely or probably even realistic or anything…" she let her voice trail off inconclusively. "But the strange part, I suppose, was how easily and naturally you expressed them. The most beautiful words flowed right out of you like it was the most normal sort of thing for you to share your feelings like that…"

"Look! It's getting up!" Martin called out with a start as the dog stood itself up and casually lumbered straight toward the front of the car.

"Easy Martin, she may be out for vengeance as a close friend of Princess Tinkle."

"Ha, ha," he responded dryly despite having no real intention of taking any sort of chances.

The suspense of the car's occupants heightened as the last of the sheepdog's furry curls and its briskly wagging tail disappeared behind the bonnet of the Lexus. This was followed by a prolonged restive period when there was neither sight nor sound of the mysterious animal.

"Right. Now what?" Martin spoke unsparingly to break the discomfiting silence.

Suddenly with a clash, two large paws and the large curly head of fur which they belonged to, appeared directly at the car's side window rattling the car and the nerves of one particular occupant.

"Ahh!" Martin blurted out in frightened surprise as he sharply twisted himself in his car seat for a full view of the dog's face filling the view of the rear-side window.

Louisa, however, held her calm demeanor and exchanged a long sympathetic look with the dog's friendly face and its clear steely eyes.

"Stupid dog- heel thyself!" Martin nearly shouted with his entire face screwed up in disgust.

That comment earned Martin a long stern but trenchant stare from the canine. Once the dog released Martin from it's glower, it turned its attention back to Louisa and then to the baby, who somewhere between his father's shriek and the glare that subdued him, had become fully wide-eyed and awake where he had remained comfortably all along in his infant seat. Meanwhile the unfazed dog took some seeming satisfaction and hence reverted back to its kindly expression. It was with this expression that the dog carefully scrutinized one at a time each of the captivated passengers who were going home. They remained in their seats rather petrified with astonishment with little chance to respond, let alone to contemplate a rational response, when the clearly contented creature at last lowered itself to the ground, slowly stepped-back away from the car and disappeared into a hidden break in the hedgerow. A period of silent disbelief followed until Martin turned to face Louisa.

"Louisa, wherever you want to talk- is fine by me."

…_end of Chapter 8_


	9. Chapter 9

**Going Home**

_The course of true love never did run smooth._

A Midsummer's Night Dream by William Shakespeare

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

"Not sure what to make of that dog: unless this is still all part of a dream," Louisa mused diffidently. "Can I ask Martin, you wouldn't happen to have any intention of buying cigars to give away, would you?"

"Of course not."

"Then that's a 'no'- just checking," Louisa acknowledged with a suppressed sigh. "Speaking of talking, the way that dog was looking in at us, it was almost as if she was about to start speaking to us, wouldn't you say?"

"Mmm- no," Martin began before compelling himself to amend his monosyllabic response, "My Auntie Joan always insisted that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Which to be perfectly honest, I happen to believe was true of that smelly animal of hers since it never did give any indication of being anything other than an annoying pest."

"Are you sure about that? I recall believing the same thing once as I was being _leered_ at as I sat on a plane flight back to Cornwall."

"Can you mean me?"

"Gosh, to be perfectly honest- I don't remember thinking at the time 'now there's the man I someday will be having babies with', did I?"

"Umm- no."

"For that I'm sorry Martin- I was wrong. Do you still not understand how very glad I was to be wrong then," she added quickly before any hurt took hold." I was wrong and it didn't take me long to realize it and to tell you so once I saw you again- not months or anything. Martin, I may give people too many chances but I know that I could never bear to be wrong about you, that's why I feel…"

"Feel what, Louisa?"

"…Is that you? Know how much I love you? As much as the sky, as much as the sea- you know that my precious?" Louisa said to allay the baby's kicks and agitated expression with soothing strokes and gentle rocks of the baby seat. "There, there… I suppose you're feeling just like me Martin, that we're rather unwise, if not unsafe, to linger here in the middle of the road any longer- let's get on home Martin, shall we?"

"No, I mean- you're right."

"Right," came her reply with laboured certainty.

After a tentative moment, and no other visible obstruction in the road ahead of them, Martin reticently restarted the car and gradually drove off to resume their homeward journey.

"I understand that babies are soothed by the sensation of driving," Martin offered so he might continue to hear Louisa's voice.

"Yes- they say, they say. And not altogether smooth either- so this road might be just perfect."

It was no sooner said than their gently perceptible motion brought its promised comfort and the baby settled comfortably once again; not to slumber, but to venture his capable, if still undeveloped, newborn senses to his surroundings with a quiet alertness. Before long they were treated to a perfusion of tree-dappled sunlight and a renewed bouquet on the air brought beyond by a stiffening breeze, both courtesy of the waning daylight. The treat to his ears was no less of entwined voices, which despite their incomprehensible tones and inflections, came to rest on a downy-soft bed of brand new neurological impulses.

"You know that feeling we were discussing earlier about your experience in the middle of an intense surgery or when I'm in the middle of an intense lesson with students, feelings that make what we do so personally important to us- I was thinking about what must be the exact opposite of that feeling."

"Hmm," Martin grunted agreeably at Louisa's rhetoric despite his masculine aversion to that one particular term.

"If you think of the exact opposite it would not be a _bad_ or a _negative_ feeling at all. Instead the diametrical feeling would be something rather completely devoid of feeling_-_ like apathy even. If you think of it that way, then those experiences we know would be considered…"

"…full with feelings," Martin interposed to Louisa's pleasing reasoning.

"Yes- precisely. Right," Louisa said haltingly so as to fully enjoy the non-clinical, non-grunted agreement.

"Yes- good, Louisa."

"Thank you," Louisa beamed given Martin's parsimonious praise. "You know I _have done_ a great many child development courses at Uni, and same as you, I'm required to keep current in my field, which I've always done."

"Yes, of course," Martin agreed but nonetheless pondered whether he'd always given her sufficient credit.

"Plus I occupied my evenings in that awful bedsit in London with quite a lot of reading. Well, that is once I gave up on teaching myself how to knit baby things. Not to worry though- you won't have to expect some hideous jumper for your birthday now."

"But not everything about London is awful."

"No, but not every practicing surgeon lives in London either."

"True, but that is where I have a job waiting for me."

"Yes, but I thought maybe you had _two_ jobs now waiting for you."

"Yes, but I can't operate just anywhere you know."

"Yes, Martin. I do know, _but_… there's that word again!" Louisa paused with an exasperated roil of her head. "Perhaps _technically_ this here right now is _talking_- it's like I was saying before, that I want to help you to be operating again and you want to help raising our son and _technically_ help is what we truly need from each other- but it won't be enough. It can't be. Maybe operating for you depends upon, well like everything else really, us _cooperating_."

That arcane, if common, word hung suspended there between them for a moment. They'd certainly heard it in their childhoods, most often when they dared not go along with their parents' wishes. They'd each heard it any number of times since when somebody was trying to get them to do something they wanted them to do. As new parents themselves, the word was bound to arise often now in connection with their own child.

"You know Martin, I have noticed that the baby has yet to _tell_ me- and I suppose that it'll be a while before he can- but I know he loves me just as he loves you. And I know he feels loved too- even though I can't imagine that he's sure what that feeling is yet."

"I presume that you're being emotional now Louisa."

"As a matter of fact Martin, I _am_ being _emotional_- and I'm sorry that I haven't mentioned this before- but you professing to be so _unemotional_ fails to recognize that that in itself is in fact an emotion!"

"Well, that's simply not logical."

"Well, yes- actually it is. Some people confuse being 'unemotional' as stoicism and thereby exercising pure logic and by reason alone you can be free of emotions and live a good and full life: when really the whole philosophy only intends to be free of suffering. The problem with this '_unemotional emotion_' you seem determined to practice is that it prevents you from expressing all those other wonderful, lovely emotions I know you have- maybe that's what accounts for your suffering with all the blood and haemophobia and all."

"Louisa, Somatic theories of emotion have been in disrepute now for decades."

"Ha! Theories of embodied cognition together with imaging of the prefrontal cortex have restored those views with insights from hypotheses of somatic markers amongst others."

"Ha?"

"Like I told you… well, let's just say its like you and your clocks and we've both spent evenings on inscrutable inner-workings- sort of," Louisa blurted. "Besides, emotions and feelings are also a kind of communication, aren't they?"

"Well it's difficult to relate the meaning of a baby crying to say, the effect of slicing an onion. Well, not our baby- obviously."

For the first time since leaving Truro Hospital, the distant seascape had come back into view. Emerging dots would soon become the familiar village of Portwenn. In the few days since they had left it, going home hadn't seemed like such a very different proposition from coming home.

"Ahhh- I had thought… I thought, Martin with finally a chance to talk we'd have some kind of, I don't know- something like a breakthrough, I suppose. Now we're almost back and our destination is in sight and here we're discussing _onions_.

"Martin, you may believe that emotions are not important or superfluous and sometimes and I have doubts about what to expect. But I do dream about it. I dream about what makes all the other stuff work and make sense. As much as you try to keep yourself from acknowledging or expressing emotions and feelings and all of that- you can't do it for long. You let them build up like that for too long and- well, it'll be like that borborygmi blockage thingy, or an embolism, or one of those bloody aneurisms- and sooner or later something's going to burst Martin!

"That doesn't mean you have to fear a terrible hemorrhage that you can't stop either.

You needn't fear it becoming a great uncontrollable outpouring of emotion, like unleashing a vast cataract of water sweeping everything away. But neither should you believe that you should hold them back braced against all possibilities until the strain makes everything come bursting apart. If my waters had broke alone with no reception on the mobile and a smashed car on the moor with an unconscious driver, it could've been too late for you, for all of us, for everything.

"Martin, if you'd just let your emotions, well- _flow_! Like Bert is always saying, 'just go with the flow!'- just, go with the _flow_."

As Martin, Louisa, and the sole new member of their brood proceeded down the sloping landscape from the last wide curve, the whole of picturesque Portwenn was laid out before them. Splashes of ample late daylight reflected up from the harbour; full-wide of a temperate sea driven by a steady but untroubled breeze. The brightened white-washed cottages ringed densely outward from the harbour's rim as it would for a treasured postcard view. Perhaps a lifelong resident might be forgiven for taking such a great sweep of beauty for granted, but Louisa most certainly was not that resident. Yet residing here too, despite the spectacular view, once again as would be prone to intrude was the real world: not the gauzy, orchestral, idyllic world of insufferable romantics.

"Oh Martin, it is so very beautiful. It's hard to believe that we actually get to come home to something like this after just a few days absence," she said hoping that Martin's inscrutable silence might stem from the very same feeling. "Please can we make a brief stop first before heading to the cottage- would that be alright?"

"Yes- why?"

"Well with the baby quite awake, I thought he should have a proper first view of his welcome home to Portwenn. It won't be long now before the sun begins setting and well- it is perfectly lovely," Louisa said with a great gush and an acute sense of homecoming.

Winding their way within the village now and casting looks out to the sea and weather, Martin and Louisa might have been forgiven for being oblivious to the swishes of curtains and faces of locals in windows as they meandered toward the Platt. It was their good fortune that Aunt Joan had long before impelled the village (under threat of strategically mis-delivered rotten eggs) to provide abundant breathing space for their special homecoming and especially for her peevish nephew. More thankfully still, the streets were empty now of the usual horde of unruly girls and their acrid quips, whose numbers had recently dwindled to fifteen when last Martin and Louisa had left Portwenn with more darkly foreboding prospects.

"Right, how about we head just there up the hill?" Martin proposed despite the increasing freight of his thoughts. "I suppose right up there- there's no reason we can't park there at the surgery."

The Surgery offered a profound panorama that was undoubtedly the best possible view to welcome the baby home to Portwenn. The surgery would be closed by now, even with the car of the new GP who'd come to replace Dr. Martin Ellingham, presently parked there. It had been from that very vantage that Martin had looked out from so many countless occasions over these past few years; looking and invariably longing across the harbour that had come to epitomize the vast chasm that always seemed to persist between he and Louisa. Despite the great many remaining uncertainties and absent the great sea change that Louisa might have hoped for Martin and herself, she consoled herself that they were nonetheless together now- in a fashion, the three of them.

"How about I just stop the car here," Martin said as they pulled up to the front of the surgery. "How about you step out with the baby in front, then I can perhaps squeeze the car into the space?"

"Oh lovely, that sounds perfect."

Louisa now carefully unstrapped the baby and lifted him from his seat in time for him to begin to broadcast the fact that he was well ready for another warm cuddle. Martin reached across to the back seat and assisted Louisa to refit the baby's cap and tuck the baby's blanket snugly against her arm. Perfectly on cue, the lowering sun emanated a new brilliance that splayed a rich wash of colours from the parting clouds in the distance. Revealed along with the great shafts of light came the day's last sigh of warmth as the centerpiece of their welcoming unfurled before them.

Louisa stood from the car with a twist so that the baby's fluttering eyelids might best meet the face of the sun as she nudged her car door closed. With the baby tightly in her arms, she stepped safely away from the car and warmed her own face likewise towards the sun as Martin began to pull away. Just as he turned the car sharply to park into the small space, the sunlight glinting from the golden Buddha statue astride the roof of the car conspicuously caught Louisa's eye.

"Martin, stop!" she cried out.

Yet the statue had already begun its scraping slide across the roof of the Lexus. Martin's mind's eye had ascertained the cause of that sound simultaneous to Louisa's astonished cry in the same instant he determinedly stomped on the brakes. But it was too late for the long journey of the Buddha statue to come to any other sort of end as it followed a direct and certain path, right to the unforgiving ground.

A thunderous crash announced that Bhaiṣajyaguru had solidly met the ground where the statue burst into a spray of jagged golden shards. With the last suffering of the statue and the broken pieces scattered about, it released from within it a tremendous flock of paper slips that quickly flew aloft with a seeming longing to be set free. Together they eagerly took wing and were carried up and out beyond the cliff, and to the surf and the wide sea below. The precious remains of the Buddha statue, now enlightened of its contents, lay in front of the surgery in tiny pieces.

Martin had already leapt from the car but only in time to stand and watch helplessly as the wind carried the slips of paper up and away onto a journey beyond distant shores. Louisa clutched the baby tightly as they both watched the same spectacle. Slowly she moved towards Martin as he remained silently transfixed watching the papers disperse.

"Martin, your valuable statue," Louisa said looking down from here at the broken remains.

"Yes," Martin uttered nearly expressionlessly while keeping his gaze fixed on the airborne papers chasing the now setting sun and dancing amongst the rays of light.

Louisa's eye now invited her to bend down and grasp at the one remaining piece of paper still trapped by a broken fragment from what had been at the bottom of the statue. Louisa retrieved it and stood again holding the paper fast together with the baby in her arms. She then moved quietly beside, and then against, Martin who was still intent at the sight of the statue's disappearing long-time cache. Without so much as breaking that gaze, Martin wrapped his arm devotedly around Louisa and their baby and held them firmly as if it was the most common and unpracticed act of his life.

"Martin?" a most ponderous tone in Louisa's voice finally broke his gaze. Looking down now for the first time he saw there in her hand the one slip of paper which had not flown away with the others.

Louisa kept it held close and began to read:

_Let arduous ardour's sweet argument_

_Be those eyes I ey'd! rapt Love tempts to broach_

_But vainly expressed is false ornament._

_How then approach and suffer not reproach:_

_._

_No star stays fast, her face does so beguile;_

_Twined swans instead will swoon to her lithe neck;_

_Spring leaps o'er Fall to warm before that smile,_

_And steeds rush near, her glist'ning mane does beck._

_._

_Blush roses clamber to purse those sweet lips,_

_Whilst the moon spurns night to shine by that cheek._

_Then what force commands my desire's eclipse?_

_Let Beauty's claim prevail my heart to speak:_

_._

_By Fate be mine and heaven made e'er twain,_

_Not once refrain of 'I love you's' refrain!_

"Martin?…"

…_The End_


End file.
